With painful memories of the Stolen Generation, Aunty Lillian Burke has volunteered with up to a hundred advisory boards, committees and consultancy groups over the last 10 years, and her efforts have now been formally recognised.

Seventeen Mile Rocks’ Dorothy Kirby has volunteered at South Brisbane’s Maritime Museum for the past 42 years and has been nominated for a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Queensland Volunteering Awards to be announced in May.

Technology plays a huge role in our Emergency Volunteering CREW service, allowing us to register and match volunteers and organisations efficiently. The Sydney Morning Herald has published a great article featuring our very own Julie Molloy – Director, Social Engagement. Julie explains how an upgrade of our volunteer management systems has resulted in a much better experience for staff, volunteers and organisations alike when disaster hits. It has also allowed a huge improvement in volunteer matching capability, to ensure volunteers with particular skills and experience can be best utilised by disaster response organisations.

Luciano Morselli (Lucky to his friends), the owner of Brisbane’s well-known Italian restaurant Lucky’s Trattoria, worked hard all his life. When retirement hit in 2010 and he hung up his chef’s apron, he sought something to do.

Volunteering is not only good for charities and community organisations, it is also good for your health. The personal benefits of giving time to a cause close to your heart can lead to a longer and healthier life.

The Federal Government’s National Volunteering Strategy Report 2011 found volunteering reduced stress as well as improving physical and mental health.

Volunteering Queensland has launched a new online module that it says offers common sense advice and demystifies the official state disaster management arrangements.

Volunteering Queensland CEO Jelenko Dragisic said the interactive resource, called 'Disasters: Know Your Role', was designed to be fun while giving people clear advice on how to prepare, respond to, and recover from disaster events.

Organisations need to move beyond traditional practices and listen to the opinions of young people in order to improve their experience and attract them to volunteering, a new report has found.

The Volunteering Queensland report, Young People as Volunteers, recommends ways in which companies can engage youth volunteers for activity and skills based volunteering, and identifies new approaches to volunteer roles through social media.